December 29, 2009

Unlike former President George W. Bush, who made getting eight hours of sleep a priority, Obama often works late into the night, averaging five or six hours of sleep, but making do with less when need be. After the Senate held a 1 a.m. vote on health care last week, Obama said he was awake to see the results.

IN THE COMMENTS: Johanna Lapp said, "It only took six words to bring down a British prime minister. Just six words":

He has a job that is above his pay grade, and it's making him tired trying to think of excuses for his inaction and inability to solve any crisis that he's faced. Not that he works very hard, but the confusion that he faces every day is tiring. He's lucky that the MSM is still willing to let him blame the previous administration.

if Obama is pushing himself to stay up at night to work instead of trying to get some sleep and keep himself healthy I would ask him to look at the big picture ...

unless he is working on an immediate military matter getting more sleep is much more important for America than another strategy session with Rahm and Axelrod ...

5-6 hours is not enough ... he will not be thinking as clearly and should a real crisis occur, he will be forced to go without sleep for an extended period of time (a day or 2) which he will be starting already with a sleep deficit ...

Bush had it right; the demands of having your faculties about you to think straight when you're the "decider" in chief -- particularly when the likes of al qaeda and other opportunists are looking for openings in a war (or what they think is a war, even if many Democrats don't agree) -- call for getting enough sleep.

You can't half-ass a presidency without enough sleep in times like these. This isn't the "holiday from history" that President Clinton enjoyed, replete with late-night bull sessions in the war room with pizza ordered in.

The guy in the big chair has to have a clear head and sleeping enough is a big part of it.

If this is a newly planted "media meme" that's supposed to help Obama, methinks his meme-planters are risking some backfire. After all, this could easily play as cumulative to the growing "dude is unprepared for the gig he campaigned for and won" sentiment out there.

Most of the time, these kinds of stories are just journalistic diddling to fill space and spin something, and have little to do with what's actually going on, though.

Jimmy Carter had the same problem for the same reasons: (1) Inability to delegate work to trusted and competent subordinates; and (2) A sense that the world world revolved around him and if he slept, the world would stop.

My advice to B+: Suck it up. there are a hell of a lot of PFCs who have it far worst than you, and don't have the Wednesday evening party and the vacations.

Travel is not grueling, traveling commercial is grueling. I traveled quite a bit on executive aircraft in the past, and when you have a chauffeur to deal with the traffic going to the airport, no check in or screening to go through and a nice recliner on a plane that leaves on your schedule and is stocked with the meals of your choice, travel is positively relaxing. It would be even more so on a 747 with your own bedroom and bath.

I don't understand why people think that Obama, of all people, is not particularly good with delegating his authority!

I'd say delegation is just about all he's done with his authority since coming into office. Consider the stimulus, healthcare legislation, cap 'n trade, etc.

Don't confuse delegation issues with prioritization issues, which are discussed elsewhere on Althouse today/yesterday. President Obama appears to delegate the big issues to Congress or others and zestily takes on the "small-ball" ones (like tripping to Copenhagen to bring the Olympics to Chicago, for instance); this is a prioritization problem, not a delegation problem.

I think prioritization's a worse problem than delegation, myself.

wv: "cheend" -- a slang word for having a dick in one's mouth, e.g., "You've been cheend!"

Aides who have known Obama since before he took office say he seems more sober than he did a year ago, but also increasingly focused on the issues facing the country. Though he may need a vacation, they say he still thrives on a keeping a busy schedule and [he] continues to scoff at critics who say he's taken on too much in his first year. Unlike former President George W. Bush, [OF course!! When is this childishness going to cease? 2012, I hope.]

who made getting eight hours of sleep a priority, Obama often works late into the night, averaging five or six hours of sleep, but making do with less when need be. After the Senate held a 1 a.m. vote on health care last week, Obama said he was awake to see the results.

[That'll catch up with him, big time. It's called "burning the candle...."]

As a presidential candidate, Obama was known to get grumpy [maybe he needed more sleep] about grueling travel schedules, questioning why so many events had to be layered on top of each other and why the days had to be so long.

[He was a whiner back then. He's always been a whiner.]

He not only hated being away from his family for long stretches but, in his typically rational style, [oh, puhleease] questioned the reasoning behind the craziness of the campaign trail. Aides came to dread having tell him about certain aspects of his schedule.

The grueling travel hasn't gone away, nor have the long days. Now they're further compounded by red-eye flights to Europe [Signifcantly, some by his CHOICE, and clearly unnecessary or vanity driven....] the seemingly endless stream ["seemingly endless" -- just say "No!"!!] of social events the president is expected to attend,

[Awwww....!!! Men older than he have coped without whining]

from concerts at the Kennedy Center to holiday parties where he and the first lady spend hours shaking hands. [Hours!!]

But for all of its stresses, the presidency [???] has provided Obama ways to cope. He persuaded advisers early on to let him keep his beloved BlackBerry

[!!!!! Ha. The Secret Service, FBI, CIA, NSA and everyone else tapped with security were having a fit. And rightly so. And are all those communications going into the presidential records? Do George Soros's love notes to him go into the record??? That really is so typical of the "Barack is special" meme. Rules and regulations are not for someone as special as Him]

to stay in touch with a handful of friends outside the White House. Aides try to include time in his schedule for morning workouts in the White House gym and weekend rounds of golf.

And it isn't even one year in yet. He should have done his homework better.

Maybe the President should watch the interview of General McChrystal on "60 Minutes"! Up at 4:30 a.m., one meal a day, Spartan living condtions and presumbaly NO Martha's Vineyard or Hawaiian vacation time! Watch this video of an inspirational American hero! I don't think that General McChrystal is ever tired!

That weight was particularly striking during the president's exhaustive, three-month review of the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan. Images of a visibly tired Obama, his black hair now flecked with gray, greeting the bodies of fallen soldiers at Dover Air Force Base and walking through rows of headstones at Arlington National Cemetery sparked rumors that he was skipping meals and losing weight

unlike Bush who ritually overate and slept so as to have the energy to dance on their caskets in soul- sucking cadences to give him eternal youth and family fortune oil options.

I remember watching an interview with George Shultz in which he was critical of the Clinton administration for their propensity to lose sleep digging into details on relatively minor problems. The reason was when a crisis hits (and they always do), you don't have any reserves - you can't function as well as if you'd taken care of yourself on normal days.

People like Obama confuse lots of work for with effectiveness. (I know the type, because I was one myself.) Part of effectiveness is discipline is setting and keeping appropriate priorities. He's not there yet.

There has been a heck of a lot of razzle dazzle in O's first year. If he travels less, gives less speeches, has fewer symbolic events in the second year, I will have hope that he is changing. He won't even have to cut back on the golf or the vacations.

Anybody seen The Cain Mutiny Court Marshall lately? The professor's extra sensitivity to Obama's style in the comunication of leadership memes reminds me of the Officer's of the USS Cain slowly getting to know their Captain under each pressure filled event. Also the intense mental workload required for a narcissistic personality to keep producing the images he wants to be seen by to the Nutroots, to the Moslems, to the Global Governance apparatus, and to the white liberal establishment all at the same time would wear out Superman.

Where do Americans go when they seek refuge from the folly of Washington? The inane regulations and political correctness that stifles the truth. The bizarre and Dali-esque massive legislative tomes that no one can be bothered to read who is empowered to actually vote on its passage. Or perhaps the endless piling on of debt in a recession as if it has no consequence. Is that not how the housing and financial mess came to be via Fannie, Freddie and Rahm?

But for AP to put out this puffery about Obama being tired when well over 12% of Americans are unemployed (myself included) shows as clear as anything I've seen yet how detached from anything resembling a scintilla of reality these bastards are.

President Barack Obama said a "catastrophic breach" of security led to the Christmas Day attempted bombing on a Detroit-bound airplane. "A systemic failure has occurred and I consider that totally unacceptable. There was a mix of human and systemic failure that contributed to this catastrophic breach of security," he said.

Rahm Emanuel, Obama Chief of Staff, during President Bush's vacation when Hurricane Katrinahit:

During Katrina, Rahm Emanuel, then a Democratic congressman, criticized Mr. Bush for not cutting his vacation short to return to Washington sooner. “He has to get off his mountain bike and back to work,” Mr. Emanuel said then.

Four years later, Mr. Emanuel is White House chief of staff for Mr. Obama, whose aides are making the same argument that Mr. Bush’s aides did during Katrina — that he is president no matter where he is and that he has been active behind closed doors, conferring with advisers and ordering action.

he's getting "tired" of the bullshit politics the GOP is playing with almost anything he says or does. here's a perfect example of the bullshit being played out by the tea baggers, wing nuts and regular ol' GOP assholes:

The bellowing by Republicans over the Obama administration's supposedly lackadaisical response to the attempted bombing of an airliner over Detroit seems as much about political posturing as legitimate national security concerns.

How else to explain the GOP's relatively quiet reaction eight years ago to President George W. Bush's detached response after a similarly-botched terrorist attack?

On December 22, 2001, Richard Reid -- known more infamously as the shoe bomber -- failed in his attempt to blow up a Miami-bound jet using explosives hidden in his shoe.

Coming less than four months after September 11, there already were deep concerns about a potential attack during the upcoming holiday break.

Nevertheless, President Bush did not directly address the foiled plot for six days, according to an extensive review of newspaper records from that time period. And when he did, it was only in passing.

Compared to Bush, I dont think anybody can say Obama is tired of reminding us (along with our security apparatus) that we are at war with terrorists that do not rest in their cause of battling the 'great satan'.

He had to get an award (and not just any award) for him say that we had been a force for good in the world.

Nevertheless, President Bush did not directly address the foiled plot for six days, according to an extensive review of newspaper records from that time period. And when he did, it was only in passing.

Yeah, he wasn't bombing Afghanistan or anything and sending terrorists to Cuba.

but that's not even the point; the point is that you and other wing nuts constantly whine about everything obama says or does, while ignoring the fact that previous presidents (little georgie included) have other things going on and choose the right time to address situations.

once again, karl rove, once again tries to spread a complete falsehood via...Fox News and Hannity...who else?

Karl Rove went on Fox News twice yesterday -- first on Your World and later on Hannity, where he essentially repeated his earlier performance -- to accuse the Obama White House of being soft on terrorism because it did not declare Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be bomber of that Northwest flight into Detroit, an enemy combatant:

Rove: This shows the big difference in this administration's approach to it. This guy was treated not as an enemy combatant, and turned over to the FBI and the CIA for interrogation, he was charged criminally, which means he immediately lawyered up and the amount of information we're going to get from him is going to be this much, compared to what we could get if he was just simply sweat by the FBI and the CIA -- not even using enhanced interrogation techniques, just using what police would be able to use if you weren't lawyered up. This is a very troubling way in which the administration has handled this.

On Hannity, he claimed that by filing criminal charges, "we treat him as a guy who tried to knock over a Seven-Eleven or got caught shoplifting."

The problem with Rove's claim that "this shows the difference" between the Bush and Obama administrations is flatly false.

Faced with nearly identical circumstances with would-be shoe bomber Richard Reid -- who was attempting to use the exact same kind of explosive on an American flight -- the Bush administration in 2001 did exactly the same thing: it filed criminal charges and eventually tried Reid in federal court.

@Jeremy:the point is that you and other wing nuts constantly whine about everything obama says or does, while ignoring the fact that previous presidents (little georgie included) have other things going on and choose the right time to address situations.

the republican contingent on this blog, by in large, are assholes. Bush, who took over a year off of his 8 years in office gets a pass and the fools and knaves here go nuts because he takes a week at Christmas.

I used to give a shit for your points of view. I no longer see reasons to be that generous.

I think these references to his being tired or needing a vacation are attempts to explain his detached, phlegmatic reactions to the world. He simply is not interested or is in over his head) in foreign policy or anything other than building the new EU-style socialist paradise.

Vacation is grueling for you and for me, when it involves driving across country or even now flying commercially. For a president, I'm imagining, not so much. When you have your own butler packing your suitcases, secretaries making all the arrangements, travel taken care of for you, no lines, no tickets, people throwing roses at your feet along the way, civil servants rolling out the carpet for you, someone else taking care of the pet, locking up the house, no TSA to deal with, someone making sure the bills are caught up, driving you wherever whenever the impulse strikes you, and T-men clearing the streets for you therefore no traffic for you personally to consider, opening doors for you, toting luggage for you, tipping for you. Then on top of that, the most excellent bodyguards attainable willing to throw themselves between yourself and danger, then it's a little less grueling, personally, I'm imagining.

I suppose the more worrisome sight is how joyless he is doing his job. His shoulders are rounded and stooped and its only 1 year into the thing. Maybe that's why he picked Biden as VP to liven up the place by trying to tie his own shoes or get his head out of a waste paper basket.

GWB took the job seriously and knew what a pressure cooker it its. Obama has been running from the job.

GWB knew that achieving a solid 8, if he ever did that, prepared him mentally and physically for each day's pressures. Obama believes he's too brilliant to need the rest, too brilliant to do what GWB did.

The result? GWB did it for 8 years and didn't run from the job. He took it wherever he went. Obama can't handle the job.

I'm really getting tired of the whimpering from the Obama camp. Bush, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, clearly lost some weight, and he had to have felt enormous pressure bearing down as he went into Iraq, but we never heard this constant, "it's hard; he's tired" crap.

Obama has found that being president is hard. He thought it would be like being a rock star -he'd get adulation and others would do the work. That's practically what has happened, but the little bit he actually has to do, he seems to do resentfully.

"I will watch you on Fox News and feel bad about myself." (War against Fox)

Now he complains he's tired.

ZIP IT, zippy!

We're not interested in hearing our president say he's tired. Suck it up, like the millions of unemployed and scared Americans currently tired as all get out, not cocooned by luxury and security like you are.

And he's a YOUNG man? Please. What a lack of endurance for someone so young.

HISTORY REPEATS ITSELF, HEGEL NOTED, prompting Marx to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.

Ah, the late Seventies. Living in Northern California (though not SF itself) and watching Jimmah on TV, aging by the minute. The increasing stoop, lines in his face growing as you watched, gray coming out in his hair. And the pundits, O! the pundits! The Presidency is just too big for one man, they said. It's impossible, a job that can't be done, they said.

Then came Reagan, elected at age 70, and looking as good after eight years and an assassination attempt as he did when inaugurated. The Presidency is a hard job, but it isn't impossible. You just have to be up to it. Part of that is knowing how to pace yourself.

I'll give Carter this: he didn't spend a lot of time whining about what a horrible set of problems Nixon and Ford left him with. Of course, as a Rickover graduate he got that hammered out of him at around O-3. He still ended up as a tragedy. Hegel would be gratified at the fulfilling of his prediction.

To start off, I don't mean this as a slam on Obama. I know the president is a 24/7 job no matter where in the world he is.

But I'm wondering what he has been doing if he is working all those hours. He delegated primary responsibility for the stimulus package, carbon trade bill and the health care bill to Congress. Yes he and his staff gave inputs, but the heavy lifting was done by Congress. He had a fair number of meetings on Afghanistan but that is done now so should take up a minimal amount of time. He has three or four briefings every day to keep him up to date on the world but none of that should take all that much time else we probably would hear about it. Does anybody know what subject is taking up all that time?

I think that a president has to guard his or her sleep, exercise *and* recreation. Running, golf, basketball, or clearing brush... it doesn't matter to me. It's important and helps to keep a person as sharp as they can be.

I'd rather presidents traveled as little as possible simply because the security necessary interrupts everyone's life for little purpose, even for days as the locals practice rerouting traffic. But not because they can't take their work with them, and do take their work with them. I just think they should stay in D.C. as a courtesy to the rest of the world. (How much of Obama's support staff would have rather been "home" for the Holiday? Is there still some poor shmuck who has to follow him around with the nuclear codes every moment of the day? Maybe they got to bring their families on Air Force One and spent the time off-shift at the beach? You think?)

That said, I would *far* rather see Obama taking a vacation with his family in Hawaii than sharing a stage in Copenhagen with Robert Mugabe.

I agree with an earlier commenter - Obama travels a lot, but it's not "grueling". Traveling with a toddler and an autistic 6-year-old from Saudi Arabia to Idaho in Coach (38 hours in transit) is grueling.

Obama just waves his hand, and someone else "gruels". He travels so much to look busy, because he's afraid to stay in the Oval Office. People will expect something of him that he's not competent to produce, so he hits the trail.

Penny, luck has nothing to do with strategy, if you're playing poker correctly. (Outcomes are a different matter, but if you're judging by outcomes instead of whether you're making the proper moves, then you aren't playing correctly by definition.)

But back to my point, you only intentionally show weakness in a poker hand if you're inviting an escalation. I see no upside in Obama bowing first to anyone.

Obama has limited management experience so he doesn't know how to delegate effectively. He also, for all his intelligence, accomplished very little before he was thrust into the limelight by his 2004 speech. He doesn't have a high energy level and doesn't manage his own time effectively. So he compensates by working too hard. I think he is overstressed.

Any objective assessment of his resume would show him unqualified for a high-level management position.